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Should donations be part of the fediverse?
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2023
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First of all, I think the fediverse, the good one in the future, is made of lots lots and lots of small instances.
Why?
Because FB, Reddit etc "brought" all the forums, homemade sites etc that existed before together in one place, regrouped them by helping everybody, and then when having the control, enshittifying it all to monetize it...
So for me, in the long run, sites should probably be about one thing, not like "everything".
That said, most small specialized sites could probably run well on a shoestring budget or almost for free (I put up an old PC with a lemmy instance and except the time it's just the electric bill I'll pay when I don't need heating, for example).
So should you give money to the "big" sites? Really, I don't know, probably today yes to have the "Lemmyspace" running. To a small community if needed, yeah!
I think it's a complex question without a good simple answer.
The tough part for me historically has been that I hit way more creators than I can donate to. Even if you break up everything into individual sites, then federate them, it's a pain to have a ton of $5 subscriptions. So the thing OP and I worked on was a supplement - a monthly budget you set, say $20, that got split among all the creators and places you browsed each month, with places you browsed more getting a bigger cut. This seems like not a perfect answer, but maybe a good first approximation for a federated net, which is why we're asking around to whether communities see a fit for what their goals are.
Hah yeah I understand. But it's also where I'm not agreeing with you on a more "political" level.
I see the lemmyverse (or basically the internet, I'm old) as a way of sharing information, not as a way of earning money.
For me you'd donate to make a sub, a community or an instance staying alive, not for 'content creation'. You're helping a space where people exchange whatever they do. I'm maybe wrong here but I feel that if content creators will earn money, it's the open bar for publicity, doom scrolling algorithms and everything else we've seen the last ten years.
I love some of the "free" stuff on the internet, like I re-read Girl Genius and I'll probably buy more stuff from them because they are so awesome (science & romance!).
So I'm up for debate ofc.
If we want to leave ad tracking hell, we need to be willing to put up some expenses or reimagine Federation to be at the user level instead of the instance level.
I guess it depends on what you want?
Is it some sort of 'get together and share stuff' thing or a 'earn a living from content creation' ?
I mean you can spin up a small instance for 10€ a month if it's the former...
One of the big problems now is the amount of space needed to host media. It's gonna be a limiting factor quick.
Weell yeah maybe. But I just got myself a spare 3TB drive for like 30€ so I can backup my Lemmy who's living on a 4TB drive. Will it be enough? For some time I sure do think so.